A Thousand Memories
by JosephineSilver
Summary: They say pictures are worth a thousand words. They are wrong. It is memories those images hold. One shot. Written for the PJO ships week.


D

Oneshot.  
Title: A Thousand Memories  
Written For: PJO ships week; Free Ship! (22 Sep - 28 Sep)  
Ship: Sally/Poseidon & Sally/Paul. (No, not some weird kinky threesome. Get your mind out of the gutter.)  
Why?: Because the meaning of 'free ship' equals 'cute fanfic about whomever the hell you want'. So there. Also because Sally doesn't get enough credit here, if you ask me. And she is SUCH an important character. So that is why.

On a completely unrelated note: Sorry about not updating my other Fics. My computer crashed (again ugghhhh), and is in the shop right now, getting fixed. My chapters were on there but nowhere else, so if my computers not back by the end of the week I will rewrite them. Okay? I'm actually typing this on my phone.

On ANOTHER completely unrelated note: I was watching Supernatural and in this particular episode Sam caught fire and my first thought was LIKE MOTHER, LIKE SON. OHMYGOD I am an awful person. (Though you have to admit that's funny.)

On to the story!

-X-

The photographs were truly incredible.

Artsy and filled with surface laughter and happiness; but angst and contention were subtle, underlying themes.

Nastasya Petukhova was a true artist. She had to be, to capture not only the moment but the emotions behind it.

Sally Jackson sighed in longing, noticing the way the woman's head was tilted at an adoring angle, her eyes completely focused on the man's face; he was looking back at her, too, but while his eyes held the selfsame adoration, they were I filled with a deep and impenetrable sadness, as if a part of him was already gone.

.one.  
THE MEETING

Sally Jackson hated beaches. She hated tourists. She hated long bus commutes.

But mostly, she hated the guy whom was sitting next to her; with his smug smirk and assured looks in her direction, as if he had already decided he was taking her to bed.

Fat chance.

She did her best to ignore him - instead choosing to pass the time by flicking through her old and battered copy of Romeo & Juliet, skipping from passage to passage, reading her favourite verses - she had just gotten to the part where Romeo was monologuing about how death had not stolen the honey from Juliet's breath when Green Eyes -

Smirky McJerk-Face, a voice sneered in her head.

- tapped her gently on the shoulder.

"Yes?" She questioned, arching one eyebrow.

"I noticed your reading material," he told her. "Very nice choice of classical fiction, though I do prefer the epics - the Odyssey, the Illiad, and their like. "

Sally nodded, still focused mostly on her book.

_Thus, with a kiss, I die_.

"What do you think of the old stories?"

Sally tensed. That was a rather sensitive question with her - and the glint in his eyes was far too knowing for her tastes.

"They're okay," she hedged cautiously. "But I do prefer Celtic mythology - like the Tuatha Dé Danann."

A blatant lie. The stories about Brighid, Dagda and the festivals; Beltane, Imbolc and Samhain, had always freaked her out.

But they were by far the better option than admitting she could see Greek myths come to life around her as they spoke - lithe, ethereal women danced and melted seamlessly into trees planted along the highway the bus was rumbling along; fae-like sprites flitted at the bus windows, chattering and glaring angrily at Smirky.

Sally felt cornered.

The bus slowly clattered to a stop just outside of the city proper, and she jack-knifed up.

"This is my stop," she said, breathlessly, for some reason.

"I'll see you later, huh, Sal?" Smirky called after her.

It wasn't till much later that night that Sally realised what the almost unnoticeable glow surrounding him was, the fact that she hadn't given him her name, and the depth of just how screwed she was.

.two.  
THE 'CHANCE' SECOND ENCOUNTER

Georgia giggled as she teased Sally's hair into an insane mess of static fuzz.

Sally sighed. "Do we really have to do this?"

He friend and confidante rolled her eyes dramatically "It's a costume party, Sal."

"It's an excersise in stupidity, Georgia," Sally imitated her friend.

"Just shut up and let me work my magic."

Sally sighed, and leant her head back against the chair, resigning herself to her fate.

-X-

The music coming out of the house was so loud that it wasn't really music anymore - it was thumping bass and white noise.

"This is awful," Sally murmured to herself.

"This is going to be fun," Georgia said firmly. "So be happy."

As the entered the foyer of the rather large house, Sally's eyes caught a glimpse of well muscled, tan legs underneath a white Greek style toga; with green silk draped all over in intricate twists and knots. On the guys head was a golden laurel wreath. He held an expensive looking, gorgeously complicated trident wrought of what looked like bronze.

In the centre of his face were two green, green eyes.

Sally cursed. Georgia, catching the whispered profanity - it rhymed with lover ducking - raised an eyebrow. Sally was not one for foul language.

Following her friends gaze, she noticed the green eyed man. She whistled under her breath in appreciation. "Whoa, serious LARPer, or what? That is some intensive costume. Must be into some sort of Mythology In Action group."

Sally's throat was dry. Just as she started backing away unsteadily, heading towards the door, Smirky turned and winked at her.

Sally Jackson couldn't breathe around the panic that was currently taking residence in her chest.

"Sal?" Georgia's voice came from far away, warped as if she was speaking underwater. "Sal!"

Sally jerked to attention. "Wha - wh - t?"

Tilting her head to one side and raising a brow in puzzlement, Georgia seemed perplexed. "Are you...okay?"

Sally glanced over at where Smirky had been standing.

He was gone.

Taking in a shaky breath, she answered. "I'm fine."

Hours later, as she was leaving the party, a voice spoke in her head.

Soon.

.three.  
THE END, AND THE BEGINNING

Soon turned out to be roughly three months later.

Sally was sitting at her chipped kitchen table one night, sighing as she tried to work out the kinks in her neck and yet still remain focused on the many, many bills spread out in front of her; when a knock sounded on the door.

Her lips parted in confusion.

She rose to open the door, but, halfway there, she froze, an intense, undeniable sense of foreboding infilling her.

Something inhumanly powerful - powerfully inhuman? - stood on the other side of that door.

A knock sounded once again, more forceful than the first.

Steeling herself for possibly certain death, Sally opened the door.

"Hello, Sally," said Smirky in a low, intimate tone. "May I come in?"

Tilting her head back defiantly, she countered with: "I don't even know your name. I'm not inviting a stranger into my home."

Smirky smiled faintly and took that as a 'yes'.

While Sally was still freaking out and panicking and trying to figure out how the hell to get him out of her apartment, Smirky called back over his shoulder:

"You may call me Poseidon."

-X-

"What's that you're looking at, Sal?"

Sally smiled at the sound of her husbands voice.

"Just some memories," she answered quietly. "Nastasya is incredible."

Sending a baffled, yet loving look in her direction (according to Rachel, her husband was exactly like some Henry character from some Infernal Vices series), he nodded in a way that said, 'whatever you say, dear,' before exiting the room and heading for the kitchen, where he knew the coffee waited for him.

Sally turned the pages of her photo album, flipping to the end, her smile increasing as she saw the last photo in the book - a record of one of the happiest days of her life.

The genuine and true love that the two people in the image shared was palpable and real and beautiful, and it nearly made Sally cry; remembering that day.

Nastasya truly was a genius.

.one.  
THE GUEST LECTURER IS 'HOT'

"Guess what," Georgia spoke into her longtime friend's ear.

"What?" Sally muttered distractedly. She didn't care much about Georgia's crush of the day. All she cared about at that moment was the fact that her son was hurting and his best friend was missing and the demigod life was so unfair.

"Hey," Georgia said worriedly, Sally's expression derailing her. "You okay?"

Sally mustered a small - and fake - smile. Despite what everyone said about Georgia - her lack of tact, her one track mind, her self obsession and promiscuity; she was a good and true friend.

"Percy," she sighed out loud, knowing her friend wouldn't new any other explanation.

Georgia frowned. "But isn't he at that camp of his?

Sally nodded.

"Then what's the problem?"

A sigh. "Nothing."

In an attempt to get the focus off of her, Sally spoke a question. "What were you going to say?"

After a few more uncomfortable seconds of Georgia scrutinizing her, the other girl shook it off and spoke out loud. "Oh, that guest lecturer we're having today," Georgia grinned, and for the second time in a few short minutes, the words 'promiscuity' and 'Georgia' popped into Sally's mind synonymously.

"What about him?"

Georgia shrugged. "He's hot."

.two.  
THE CLASSICS OVER COFFEE

Sally jumped as she noticed her son staring at them through a misty Iris screen, both eyebrows nearly reaching his hairline, an his gaze following Paul like a hawk; suspiciously.

While Paul was away, they conversed quickly, and Sally mentally reminded herself to get some blue candy.

The sound of footsteps alerted her to Paul's return, so with a smile and a farewell, she waved a hand over the message, breaking the connection.

"Sally?"

Said woman turned around to smile at Paul. "Where were we?" She asked.

"I believe we were debating over whether or not Christopher Marlowe and Shakespeare are the same person."

"Oh, that's right," Sally said, feigning surprise. She recognized the flirtatious tone of her voice but didn't care - she was having too much fun. "You seem to be of the opinion that they are."

Paul barked a laugh. "Don't you think so?"

She smiled indulgently at him. This was what she liked about Paul - he wasn't challenging her. He wasn't making it clear he thought her opinion was stupid. He was genuinely curious about what she had to say, and wanted to hear her speak her thoughts aloud.

He was treating her like an equal.

"No, I don't," she informed him. "Read Faustus, and then pick a random Shakespeare - say, Othello. The inflections in the words, the phrasing, the cadence - completely different, even if they are similar at first glance." She cast a sly look at him. "And to the untrained eye, almost impossible to spot."

Paul nodded along, seeming to accept her words. Then he realised what she had said.

"Hey!"

.three.  
AH, NERD LOVE

Percy kept sending sly glances in her direction, smiling or chuckling to himself when he thought she didn't notice.

Well, she did, and it was beginning to freak her out.

Wherever she went and whatever she did, the paranoia was there, nagging her.

It only got worse when Georgia was apparently let in on the secret - she and Percy spent most of their time together whispering and co-conspiring.

Finally, Sally couldn't stand it anymore.

One night, as Georgia left to go home -

('Night Aunt George!'  
'Goodnight Percy!'  
*sly winks and looks cast her way*)

- Sally slammed the door shut ad turned to face her son, practically steaming at the ears.

"What is going on?" She growled out. "What are you two planning? Gods help you if it's some sort of surprise party..."

Percy smiled faintly. "Relax, mum." He said. "No party, I promise. Nothing like that."

Just as Salt was relaxing, he called over his shoulder, "besides, it's us three, not us two."

Then, before she could question him further, he bolted.

"Dammit," she growled.

-X-

Whatever Sally had been expecting, it had certainly not been this.

A car covered in Post-It's, maybe. Salt in the sugar container and vice versa, maybe. Her cell number posted on flyers around the city as the number to call to enter a 'best Chewbacca impression will win $100'competition - almost definitely.

But not this. Never this.

But she was glad that she got this instead. Super, monumentally glad.

And as she looked into the hopeful eyes of Paul - Paul, who was her equal, not her superior; Paul, who had accepted her son as his own; Paul, who had accepted the demigod world and the lifestyle that came with it - there was only one thing she could do.

She consulted her heart, and spoke its truth.

"Yes."

::::::::::::::::::::

And there you have it. There's my story. I know this probably isn't how it happened, but allow me this, okay? It's how I imagined it, almost - a sort of head canon of mine.

Ciao!  
- Josephine, out.

DT


End file.
